Humans, like other animals, respond physically to stressful situations: our hearts race, our muscles contract, our arteries narrow and our blood thickens. That primordial reaction may come in handy during a standoff with a hungry predator or a spear-wielding rival, but it’s horribly suited to the unremitting pressures of modern life – especially if you happen to be what Dr. Robert S. Eliot calls a “hot reactor.” Eliot, who runs the Institute of Stress Medicine in Jackson Hole, Wyo., has found that when seemingly healthy people confront the challenges of daily life, nearly 20 percent suffer extreme surges in blood pressure (their systolic readings can rise from 120 to a death-defying 300). Standard tests, which gauge “resting” blood pressure, show no sign of trouble. So these folks often go untreated until they’re felledby a stress-induced heart attack or stroke. Fortunatelya “working” blood-pressure test, which includes readings taken during various activities, can quickly identify you as a hot reactor, anddrug treatment can mitigate the hazard.
Whether they study people or rabbits, researchers find that intimacy promotes health while isolation fosters stress, disease and early death. After reviewing the relevant literature in 1988, researchersled by University of Michigan sociologist James House concluded that social isolation is statistically just as dangerous as smoking, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, obesity or lack of exercise. The good news is that finding a companion – any companion, from a fish to a spouse – can buffer us from stress. In a 1989 study, Stanford psychiatrist David Spiegel found that by spending 90 minutes a week with a support group, women with metastatic breast cancer doubled their average survival time (from 19 months to 37 months). By the same token, pet owners enjoy better health than the petless. Studies have shown that the very act of stroking a dog can lower heart rate and blood pressure (both the dog’s and the person’s).
The 1950s notion that hard-driving “Type A” characters have the most heart attacks hasn’t held up under scrutiny. But certain components of the Type-A personality have emerged as strong predictors of illhealth. Studies have found, for example, that self-absorption (as manifested by the frequency with which a person uses words like “I,” “me” and “mine”) makes heart attacks more likely. Cynicism and hostility have the same effect. For all the value that psychotherapists once placed on expressing anger, recent research suggests that the exercise merely strengthens hostile feelings, reinforcing their stressful effects. A healthier strategy is to walk away from a potentially hostile encounter and indulge in what Stanford neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky calls a “time-out behavior.” By simply taking 30 minutes to read, exercise or practice a hobby, he says, you can find more calm than a martini would bring, and return to the battlefield refreshed.
In a groundbreaking 1990 study, researchers from Cornell Medical College found that the most stressful jobs were notthe busiest ones but rather those combining bigdemands with a relativelack of autonomy. Workers who found themselves in this double bind suffered three times the usual incidence of high blood pressure. Such findings suggest that employers could enhance public health by giving workersa little more latitude.
But remaking the world is an unlikely road to peace. As Dr. Dean Ornishof the Preventive Medicine ResearchInstitute in Sausalito, Calif., has written, “We can’t always change otherpeople. We can’t always change jobsor families. But we can change our perceptions.” There isno best recipe for managing stress, but anything that stills the mind can help. In a recent study of 51 highly successful men and women, Stanford medical professor Kenneth Pelletier found that their stress-management techniques ranged from prayerto biofeedback, visualization and walks on the beach. What set them apart was not a devotion to any one regimen but a learned ability to feel, and foster, inner peace. A trip to the gym can bring a double bonus, since it strengthens the heart and lungs while bathing the brain in soothing endorphins. The trick is to avoid turning it into a stress-laden obligation. Unless you can slowdown and enjoy it, a bubblebath may do you more good.
